Vizio’s Google TV Enabled Co-Star Is A Hit – Sells Out In Less Than 12 Hours (If Only Google Had More Faith In The Platform)

It was only 2 days ago pre-orders for the Google TV-enabled Vizio Co-Star went live and today we’re learning that the mini set top sold out in less than 12 hours. Vizio took to their Google+ page to announce the good news, as well as let everyone know that a 2nd round of pre-orders are officially available. We expect the second batch to sell out equally as fast.

I guess you could consider this the first real hit for the Google TV platform which hasn’t exactly been attracting consumers like flies on honey. In fact, after today’s huge announcement of Google Fiber — Google’s new broadband service — you’d be hard pressed to find any mention of Google’s red-headed step child anywhere. Funny too, seeing as how — oh, I don’t know — the launching of a new cable service seemed like a pretty good time to plug Google TV and maybe even throw in a set top (instead of the Nexus 7 remote). But I digress…

Anyone manage to get a pre-order in for the Vizio Co-Star? Anyone planning on pre-order/buying it once it’s finally available?

I held off ordering it until a few reviews show up. Hard to know how the hardware will perform.

http://youtu.be/GvPlAyTG4ik?hd=1 1PhoneDoesnt.com

Ya Chris not sure why Google is not going for a full android integration thing. This should be their gateway to the living room but as of now, nobody knows much about these things and Google certainly isn’t trying very hard within the platform, that much is obvious

NIGHTSCOUT

Why no BLURAY?

peanutsrevenge

Cos optical medium is 20th century tech. Bluray was always doomed!

NIGHTSCOUT

I liked Redbox BluRay rentals.

Picazzo

LOL..what a duesch!!

droidman

I played around it in the Google io. The control was not good. Sony model was much nicer and it costs twice.

http://www.newportessentials.com/ paco cornholio

Thought about it. Too scared it will make the human beat-box sounds. Chocolate Rain was too rich for their marketing budget?

Itchy_Robot

Nice parenthisis … so true.

RichardReich

Yes, the absence of GTV in the Google Fiber announcement is the final nail in the coffin. Too bad.

http://ARMdevices.net/ Charbax

Google Fiber TV box pretty much is a Google TV box. No need for HDMI input nor IR blaster, the rest of the hardware and software is pretty much Google TV. Google TV simply is Android with an optimized UI for TV.

http://ARMdevices.net/ Charbax

The Google Fiber box is a Google TV box. What are you thinking? Google provides the TV over the Fiber, Google Fiber TV replaces cable/satellite TV, they don’t need a HDMI input nor IR blaster. Google TV is just Android when Android is displayed on a TV. The Nexus Q is Google TV too, and so is any Android phone with a HDMI output. They may not have optimized all the user interfaces for HDMI outputs yet, but that’s pretty much going to be a standard on every Android device with a HDMI output.

http://twitter.com/gamercore Chris Chavez

Google TV is almost (edited) like its own separate platform, with its own separate apps and devices. I’m not sure WHY Google doesn’t just incorporate it into Android (hoping they’ll do this in future builds), but I’ve always thought it would be great if, when plugging a device into a TV via HDMI, you were asked via a prompt if you wanted to launch a phone, tablet of Google TV interface.

There’s no reason your handset or tablet couldn’t be a portable Google TV set top box. It’s all Android, right? All you would need is a bluetooth keyboard.

I have no clue what Google’s plans are for Google TV, but that’s kinda the point I was trying to make in the post. Nobody knows what Google is planning with Google TV because Google has said very, very little.﻿

http://ARMdevices.net/ Charbax

Google TV is Android. Just with a filtered Google Play Store, and with a Home Replacement optimized for laid back remote control use.

The only status of Google TV is that it gets integrated into devices that are dedicated to run that Google TV mode.

The main and only special hardware feature of those Google TV boxes is they do HDMI throughput (to input cable/satellite TV), HDMI overlays and IR blaster. Those hardware features aren’t needed for everyone.

There is little to no delay until pretty much every Android device with a HDMI output can become a Google TV automatically. Switching to Google TV Home Replacement and Filtering the Apps and Google Play to show only the TV-optimized apps, it’s a piece of cake. Every Android device with a HDMI output is Google TV.

http://twitter.com/gamercore Chris Chavez

True. Google is holding back our phones and tablets from entering into “Google TV” mode which, I admit, sucks. Guess they want to keep it separate for now.

http://ARMdevices.net/ Charbax

Yup, but don’t worry, the Google Fiber TV Box is a Google TV box. They just added the word Fiber between Google and TV. They showed some of the UI, that’s pretty much the newest Google TV UI and that is what everyone in Kansas is getting.

http://www.mark717.com Mark Seven

I’m waiting to see what the reviews say first.. Don’t wanna invest in a POS too early in the game.. Definitely interested tho..

David Fleck

I feel like if all the tech blogs keep saying Google TV is dead it will become a self fulfilling prophecy.
Readers read this and decide, well, I guess I shouldn’t buy a GTV product so sales remain slow/no existent. Developers see that there aren’t many users so they stop developing apps for GTV. Existing users then complain that there aren’t any good/new GTV apps which creates more negative buzz. Tech blogs perpetuate negative buzz….
Google TV joins Google Wave in the Google Cemetery.
I really want GTV to be awesome and I really want to buy the Vizio Co-Star but articles like these make me think twice.

longfei769

tinyurl.com/cyk9xz2

mplsbill

I’m one of those people who decided to dive in to google tv from the get go, all I can say is we got burned! I bought the logitech revue and a sony 32″ tv with gtv built in, I can say I was impressed at what it could have been, not so impressed with what it turned out to be! I guess I’m a glutten for punishment as I preordered the vizio costar in July and it was supposed to ship 8/14/12 but today is the 22nd and mine still isn’t here. I’m looking forward to seeing if the vizio is able to live up to the hype the logitech wasn’t capable of. The sony tv is a gr8 tv, and the gtv platform is definitely better than the logitech, but very, very slow and has a lot of limitations! The vizio is the last gtv unit I plan to gamble on, if it isn’t what I’m expecting I wonn’t be trying another until its tried and proven by others b4 me, but I do have high hopes! Thanks for this article, with a dual core processor and 4gb of ram, hopefully this one will function in ways the others weren’t capable of, but I’ll post here and let you know what I think if/when it finally gets here and I can compare the differences.